The home of the online streaming service of NOAA Weather Radio Station KHA-53 Rochester, New York.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Problems With the Stream? Please Let Us Know

From time to time, a technical fault may interrupt the live streaming of KHA-53. We work hard to maintain a reliable and technically superior stream of the weather radio service for Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes region. In fact, it is so reliable, we sometimes don't immediately notice any technical issues.

If you find the stream is not functioning properly, here are the most likely causes and what you can do about them:

Loud static, no program audio heard: This is typically an indication KHA-53's transmitter is off the air. The most common time this occurs is during a failed test of the emergency alert system conducted at around 11:00am ET each Wednesday. If the transmitter detects an extended period of no audio, it will temporarily shut down and reset, usually within a few minutes. There is usually no need to report this technical fault. However, if you notice an extended period of static/white noise that lasts for over one hour, please let us know. We can re-tune to the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter relay in nearby Spencerport, N.Y., if the primary audio feed is unavailable. This alternate transmitter delivers nearly identical weather information;

Loud hum on feed: This is almost always caused by a fault with the Verizon or Frontier phone line which feeds the audio from the National Weather Service forecast office in Buffalo to the transmitter in Rochester. A slight hum is normal, a very loud hum is not. Please report it to us so we can report it to them;

Very low or very loud/distorted program audio: This is usually a problem on our end when the streaming computer is mis-configured. If power is interrupted for an extended period and the battery backup fails, when power is restored, our weather radio will reset to the default, audio muted state. You may still hear program audio at a very low volume with poor audio quality when this happens. Program audio that is very loud or distorted is likely also our fault. Please report both instances so we can correct them as quickly as possible;

No stream available: If the stream is missing from the Weather Underground index of weather radio stations or will not launch from a third party app or link, this usually means our Internet connection is down or a technical fault has caused the stream software to fail. Please report this to us.